


The Unread

by DarlingDearestDemonic



Category: Cowboy Bebop (Anime)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Confessions, F/M, Mild Language, Murder Mystery, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29570064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingDearestDemonic/pseuds/DarlingDearestDemonic
Summary: The Merit Society, 2071. On Planet Earth 2.0, in a society where merit is currency, Patricia LaVelle is wanted for a murder that she either did not commit or cannot remember. She enlists the help of Spike and thus draws him into a world of lies, backstabbing, and murder most foul.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! Welcome and thank you for checking out this story. I hope you have as much fun reading as I did writing it. Just a little disclaimer, I am currently on S1E14 of Cowboy Bebop so I am relatively new to the series. So if this plotline has already been explored or I'm clueless as to small details, I apologize in advance.
> 
> Anyway! Enjoy!

Planet Earth 2.0, Merit Society

Five deaths occurred on Planet Earth 2.0 that would forever change Patricia LaVelle’s life. The first happened during the year 2057, at a gas station near the edge of New New New York. A woman was caught in the crossfires of a standoff between the town Police and a man classified as Harmful. The woman died at the scene. The man - hereby referred to as the Harmful - was also shot, and succumbed to his wound en route to the hospital.

The third death occurred at an unnamed bar in the same town. Two men engaged in a verbal altercation pertaining to the Classification System. The first man will hereby be known by his Classification, Upstanding. And the second man will be known as his Classification, Neutral. At some point during the argument, the Neutral pushed the Upstanding. The Upstanding fell, subsequently hitting his head on the cement. He succumbed to his injury immediately. 

The fourth death occurred at the System Maintenance Building within the Bureau of System Management sector. Dany Dempson, Classification: Upstanding, ended his life with a pistol after performing routine maintenance on the System. Dempson was a kind and overly social man with consistently positive merit. His suicide was met with much confusion and despair.

The fifth and final death occurred a year later in the very same building. Mrs. [REDACTED] was shot and killed on the scene. Circumstances remain under evaluation.

These are the events leading up to the trial of one Patricia LaVelle, Classification: Detecting…

Session: [REDACTED]

X

“Come on, pass the ball!”

“In your dreams, monster feet!”

“I’m open, I swear!”

“ _ Ali-oop! _ ”

The young man sprung into the hair and dunked the basketball into the rim with a flourish. He dangled there for a while, swinging his legs through the air and taunting the other players. The young woman put her hands on her hips and huffed. Sweat was running down the side of her face and creating dark rings around her armpits. She lifted the collar of her tee-shirt and ran it along her face.

“Your feet are bigger than mine,” she panted, flashing her ringed middle finger at the man hanging from the basketball net. He stuck his tongue out at her.

“Yeah but I’m a man, so it’s okay.”

“Bad news, buddy. I looked up the word ‘man’ in the dictionary, and it had your face under the antonym section.”

“Bookworm. Nerd. Don’t you have somewhere you’re supposed to be?”

“I’ll go in a minute!”

The boy jumped down, full of adrenaline at having dunked so magnificently on the opposing team. But he didn’t see the man running up behind him and ended up crashing down onto his shoulders. The man stood up. He was around the same age as the boy, but easily three times his size. He was a player on the opposite team. The faded green letters on the Device hooked into his wrist read ‘Harmful.’

“Watch where you’re going, Spud,” he growled as his team members ganged up behind him. A man leaning against the broken-down fence flicked a lighter and looked up. The tiny flame met the white edge of the cigarette and he inhaled deeply, one hand shoved in his pocket. 

“Why don’t you?" Spud spat back, still grounded. The man balled his fist under the boy’s shirt and yanked him to his feet. 

“Got ourselves a little smart ass here. God, I hate smart asses.” He swung his hand back and the young woman threw herself between them. The man’s look shifted to one of surprise, but it was too late for him to still his hand. His blow hit her square in the chest and she stumbled back with a cough.

“Huh?” He said in surprise. And then, “oh shit. Sorry, Patty.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” she said simply, massaging her chest. She was okay with letting the moment blow over but Spud was having none of it. He stood up on his tippy toes and proclaimed in his loudest voice “Bren  _ hit  _ a  _ girl! _ ” 

“What? I didn't - I mean...she jumped in front of me, I - aw, whatever. I don’t wanna play this lame Earth game anyway. Good riddance, goodbye!”

Patty rested her forearm against Spud’s head and waved at the man stomping away.

“Great, now we’re a man short,” a young man from the opposing team whined and threw up his hands. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll lose with or without. How about…” Spud swung his finger in an arc around the court until he was pointing at the man smoking a cigarette. “You! You wanna join us for a game?’”

“Hm?” The man said, pointing to his chest. “Me? I’m not much of a player, kid.”

“But you’re so tall!” Chimed the young man from the other team, “You’d be perfect! Come on!”

“Naw, man, he’s all legs. He’ll probably be tripping the whole game.”

“Actually, on second thought, I think I’ll join.”

The team cheered as the man removed his jacket and tossed it at Patty. She smiled as she caught it and tucked it under her arm. She was amused by the man’s sudden willingness to play and wondered if the insult to his legs had been what spurred him on. She was about to discard his jacket on the bench and rush in to play but intuition stopped her and she glanced at the Device hooked to her arm. Below the words ‘Detecting,’ her clock read 10:34 pm, six minutes before her show was set to start.

“Shoot. Hey guys, I gotta dash! Sorry!” She called over her shoulder as she ran away from the courtyard. The tall man who had been smoking the cigarette startled and called something after her, but it was drowned out by the cries of her teammates bemoaning the loss of yet  _ another _ player.

It was only when she reached the door of the barroom that she realized that she was still carrying the unfamiliar man’s jacket. 

“Oops,” she said before pushing open the backdoor and entering into a completely different scene.

X

“ _ I’m having a blue Christmas...la da di da dad da! _ ” she breathed in deeply and then sighed into the microphone. She wrapped one hand around the stand and then snaked the other one through the air, her glittery red nail polish catching the light. Cigarette smoke curled around her fingers and slid down her wrists, partially obscuring the Device. She was intoning now and harmonizing with the saxophone. She was far off-key from the rhythm of the original song. But this was Earth 2.0. They liked to do things a little differently.

Most of the bar patrons were busy staring into their drinks or each other's eyes. But a few heads were turned her way and she preferred it like that. The TV behind the bar was playing repeats of a late-night bounty hunter show that held no interest to the patrons. The System implemented on Earth 2.0 did not allow for much degeneracy, and thus a bounty had never before been set on its people before.

She caught the eye of a patron at the very far end of the bar and her breath hitched. Her shoulders tensed and then relaxed beneath the blue jacket that belonged to the man staring back at her. She gave a little wave and a smile, and he sighed in return, his eyes closing in exasperation. She'd have to give him the jacket later. At the moment, it just fit so well with her red dress. That, and it was currently hiding the residual pit stains leftover from her basketball game.

_ Exciting _ , she thought as she continued to sing and watch the man. He had turned away from her and was downing a shot. While part of her strove to impress and lull her audience, the other wandered off into a daydream whereby they were two partners in crime. He was a detective and she was the elusive damsel, and they were fated to meet that night over a blue jacket and Whiskey Bitters.  _ Maybe… _

He stood and ambled towards the back. Right before he opened the door, he slid a cigarette from the box in his pocket and put it in his mouth. But not before casting one more warning glance over his shoulder.

_ I want my jacket,  _ his eyes said before he closed the door behind him.

“ _ I'll be so blue just thinking about you...decorations of red on a green Christmas tree won't be the same dear if you're not here with me… _ ” she traced her fingernail along the microphone stand. Up and down and up and down it went as her eyes shifted to the empty spot that he had once occupied. Then, for no particular reason at all, she looked up and saw her face shining on the TV screen.

At first, she didn't even recognize her own image. But, when she did, her heart gave a stutter. Somehow, she managed to keep singing as her heart began to beat faster and faster in her chest. There was no doubt about it - her picture was being featured on the bounty hunter channel. She couldn't hear the sound of the TV over the music coming from the band, so she wasn’t able to ascertain whether or not some horrible joke was being played. The sound in her ears became distorted as if she were underwater, and all of the faces around her seemed to blur into the barroom light. A price flashed above the image of her face on the TV. A hefty one.

And it was at that precise point she realized that a bounty had been put on her head.

No one else had noticed Patricia LaVelle on the screen yet. Everybody was staring at her now, and she realized that she had stopped singing. Her band had fallen silent, their groovy rhythm interrupted by her sudden muteness. It was surreal, seeing everybody staring at her while only a few feet away a small TV declared her a criminal and a runaway. Any second, someone would look up and realize what had happened.

And that is exactly what the bartender did.

She watched in shock as he lifted his head as if in slow motion. He had seen her staring slack-jawed at the TV and was curious as to why. The glass that he had been polishing slipped from his hands and descended towards the floor. She turned, realizing that the sound of it shattering would make everybody turn towards the TV, and began to run.

The bartender cried out but she didn't hear what he said. There was the sound of chairs being scraped back and people climbing to their feet. And still, she ran as fast as she could in her heels. Off the stage, through the halls, past the bathrooms. She didn't know where she was going, she just knew that she had to  _ go. _

She burst through the backdoors and looked around wildly. There was no one there, or so she thought. A man stepped forward from the shadows, and she saw that it was the same man that she had been eyeing at the bar.

“Hey you,” he said cordially. His expression fell when he saw her wild eyes and heaving chest. “Something wrong?”

“Uh…” She bent down and began to remove her high heel. She wouldn’t be able to run in them. The sole of her bare foot crunched against the icy ground and she winced. 

_ There’s a bounty on me,  _ she thought to herself as she undid the clasp of her second heel.  _ Someone actually put a bounty on me!  _ Her watering eyes rolled towards the misty moon as if she could find answers there and she sighed shakily, her breath turning white and then disappearing in the night. 

“What did I do?” She mumbled to herself. The heel came off and she flung it away. She could hear loud voices approaching the backdoor. “I can't remember what...” Her eyes rolled back down and met those of the shocked stranger. “Here,” she said shakily, “I’ll trade you.”

She twirled his blue jacket around his shoulders and plucked the cigarette from his dry, parted lips. Then, before he could muster a word of complaint, she was off and running again.

She took the back roads. She scurried down alleys and then reappeared at the entrance. She doubled back, retracing her steps, and then changing her route completely. It was an odd and frenzied sort of planning that took a while. But when she was sure that she had lost her pursuers, she made her way back home to the apartment that she shared with her roommate. 

She stared up at the grimy three-story building from an adjacent alleyway, breathing heavily, her face cloaked beneath fabric torn from her dress. It was a terrible idea for her to go to the one place where bounty hunters and police were sure to flock. But if her assumption was correct about the airing of the bounty channel, she had precious little time before the flock arrived. And she needed some things if she were to survive on the run.

_ On the run. _

Those were the words that got to her. Sniffling, she quickly made her way through the snow and pushed open the lobby door. There was no one there, thankfully, and she jumped in the elevator, jamming the ‘close door’ button as soon as she did. Her thoughts were like a tornado in her mind. What would happen if she turned herself in? Was it all just a big mistake? At what point would the Device on her arm begin to transmit her location? And most importantly….what had she done to become a Wanted Criminal?

The elevator doors opened and she threw herself into the hallway. She was panting again, her vision blurry with tears. Still, somehow, she managed to slide the key into the lock and push the door to her apartment open. Rats scurried away as the light from the hallway shined into her living room, and she quickly closed the door behind her. 

“Hello?” she said softly, her voice a hollow whine. “Angela?”

The only light in the living room came from their small TV. That cursed bounty hunter show was still playing, except this time it was showing a round-up of all Wanted Criminals at the moment. She stood rooted to the spot, hypnotized by her image in the far left corner of the screen. There was her name, displayed between the image of a man who had gone on a murderous spree and a woman who had blown up a government building. It was a picture of her from a poster displayed at her very first performance. She was younger then, her smile full of innocent mirth, but the likeliness was quite unmistakable. 

She shook her head and roused herself. Quickly, she began to move about the apartment, grabbing essential items and stuffing them into a large bag. A police siren wailed and then passed beneath her window. Choking, and gasping beneath her tears, she stumbled on her cut and swollen feet and fell to her knees on the carpet.

A door opened and she whipped her head up, fear constricting her throat. There, at the end of the hall, stood Angela. Her expression wavered between pity and disgust as she grasped the door frame. Shadows concealed half of her face, revealing only one eye gleaming beneath her shock of blonde hair.

Patty put her hands up, as if in supplication. “Angie, please…”

“I saw you on TV,” Angela said tonelessly. She took a step forward and Patty scooted away on her bottom until her back was against the wall. Angela knelt in front of her, her eyes unblinking as one hand moved around in her pocket. “What a terrible mess of things. I’m so...so sorry.”

Patty screamed in horror as her roommate withdrew a thin metal slip from her pajama coat pocket. She grabbed Patty’s wrist with a vice-like grip and yanked it towards her.

“Stay still,” she said in a voice so devoid of emotion that, for a moment, Patty wondered if the woman before her was her roommate at all. She tucked Patty’s hand beneath her armpit and held it there as she inserted the metal slip into a small slot in the Device on her arm. She slid the metal slip back and forth numerous times before taking it out and reinserting it again. The lights on the Device flickered and Patty looked up at her in wonder.

“Angie, what…” she breathed but Angela was avoiding her eyes. Her mouth was set in a grim line and she gave the metal slip another shake. The Device gave a staticky groan and as Patty watched in pure wonder, the lights went out.

Her Device was dead, something that she had never seen or heard of before.

Finally, Angela looked up at her. She was biting her lip as she lifted Patty to a standing position. She undid her pajama coat as blue and red lights began to flash in their window.

“Go,” she said, placing her coat around Patty’s shoulders.

“Angie, wait, what did you do? What happened to my Device?"

“I disabled it. For now. They won’t be able to track you. I don’t know when or if it’ll come back on but you…” tears streamed down both women’s cheeks and Angela pushed Patty out the front door. “You need to leave. Go as far away as you can before that thing comes back on.”

“But how-?”

“Patricia,” Angela said before closing the door, before the police stormed up the stairs, before Patty made a daring escape through an emergency window, “You’ll never understand how much I regret this.”


	2. Chapter Two

Aboard the Bebop

One Year Later, 2072

Faye leaned over Jet’s shoulder and peered curiously at the map on the screen. Her hair brushed against his cheek and he waved it away irritably. “The Merit Society,” she read aloud as he set the Bebop’s functions to Stand By. “Sounds like a boring place. What’re we doing here?”

“Spike’s outta cigarettes,” came the gruff response. She stuck a straw in her mouth and sucked loudly, right in his ear, irritating him further. Ein ran past them, yelping, an exuberant Ed close on his heels. 

“Cowboy cigarettes, cowboy cigarettes! Smoke ‘em while you got ‘em!” she squealed, her goggles slipping lower on her forehead. She jumped high in the air and clapped her hands, before running down the hall, her shrill voice and Ein’s yelping trailing behind her. Faye shrugged her shoulders and plopped down on the passenger seat behind Jet. She crossed her legs and bounced her ankle restlessly, her golden anklet jangling.

“No, really. What’re we doing here?”

“You don’t believe me?” Jet snapped back. “Then obviously you underestimate the power that a good smoke has over a chimney head like Spike. Besides, if I remember correctly, a certain someone cheated him out of his last pack just this morning.”

“Hmmm...I guess you’re right.”

“What, about the cheating?”

“Sore losers are always the first to cry ‘cheat’ in any game. I am merely a  _ savant  _ of  _ alternative  _ strategy. But to fly all the way out here for cigarettes? Why couldn’t he get them on-”

“Beats me!”

Faye shrugged and watched the gleaming blue planet beyond the window. “What’s up with that place anyway?” She said, tossing her arm over the back of the seat. “Why’s it called the Merit Society?” 

“It’s actually called Earth 2.0. It was designed to be a replica of the original Earth, but with an updated attitude towards the human lifestyle. Their currency is measured by merit instead of Woolongs.”

“Oh, I get it. So if I do something good, I can cash out on something like chips at the grocery store.”

“That’s the idea. But let’s make the comparison a little more realistic, shall we? If you do something bad, like stealing, it would be harder for you to obtain things like food, water, even a living space.”

Faye sat up and fixed Jet with an eager stare. “Really? A girl can sure game a system like that. How do they know when someone does something good or bad?”

“That’s easy. Each citizen is fitted with a Device at the age of twelve. The Device, which is attached to their arm, houses an AI system that is always monitoring their interactions. Back to our old comparison, hmm, let’s see,” Jet scratched his bearded chin, “Let’s say you stole a bag of chips from the store -”

“Chips are boring. Let’s switch to diamonds. They  _ are _ a girl’s best friend, you know!”

“Hey, chips were your idea! Okay, fine, we’ll say diamonds. Let’s say you stole a load of diamonds from the jewelry store and I, a regular citizen, chase after you and retrieve them. The AI will dock points from your file and give you a negative Classification. I, on the other hand, will receive a positive Classification. These new classifications will be displayed on our Devices. Guess who’s more likely to be hired when attending a job interview?”

“You, obviously. I wouldn’t be caught dead attending a job interview.”

“You’re missing the point. I’ll be visibly Classified as a good citizen and you...you’ll be classified as a chump. It’s called the System and it’s a global transactional affair. There've been many complaints about its antiquated position on good vs bad. And, plus, the System itself is pretty buggy and filled with errors.”

“Interesting…” Faye said, already imagining the many ways that she could cheat the System. “And Spike wants to go all the way there just for a pack of cigarettes?”

“What can I say?” Spike said suddenly, slinking past the Operations room with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He didn’t bother to look at them as he passed. “It’s a habit to die for.”

They both paused and listened as the carrier ship unloaded from the Bebop. It appeared briefly through the window before setting on a fast course to the small blue planet, trailing smoke behind it. They watched it disappear into a small red blip upon the surface of the planet and Faye sighed.

“What a strange little man.”

X

Spike sat at the farthest end of the bar, affording him a view of the entire room while remaining relatively anonymous. On the wall beside him hung plaques of grinning patrons, all of them fitted with the strange metal Device that was the planet’s infamy. Upon arrival, he had been slapped with a small metal strip that adhered to his skin immediately. It was a Visitor’s Device - the Baby Badge, as it was affectionately called - and it would measure his merit whilst on the planet until it was later removed by authorities. He shot a glance at it and sighed. On the screen, it read ‘Upstanding’ in glowing green letters - a tentative Classification awarded to all travelers. He had a theory that consuming a certain number of alcoholic beverages would lower his score. And yet he had no problem testing his theory out.

_ The things I do for a smoke,  _ he thought and flashed two fingers at the bartender. 

“Two more?” The bartender said in a hoarse voice. He slung a dirty dishtowel over his shoulder and slid two shot glasses Spike’s way. “You’re new here, I can tell by your Baby Badge. Must not have read the Merit Bible. Here, I’ll give you a little preview. Three or more alcoholic beverages will result in-”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said and immediately downed a shot. The bartender shrugged and walked away, content with letting the poofy-haired tourist learn his planet’s rules the hard way. Spike retrieved a cigarette and let it dangle between his lips. He was about to light it when a person covered from head to toe in a black cape took a seat at the corner of the table closest to him. Spike watched them carefully, only slightly unnerved by their concealed identity. After all, he always reasoned, people tended to get real wild when anonymity was on their side. A grimy white glove appeared from beneath the cloak and held up two fingers to the bartender, before pointing at Spike’s glasses.

“You’ll have what he’s having?” The bartender affirmed and the gloved hands gave a thumbs up before pausing and then holding up three fingers.

The bartender nodded and walked away to retrieve their drinks. Spike realized that he had been staring, the tip of his cigarette growing wet between his lips. He flicked his lighter and lifted the small flame to the tip before pausing to watch the figure again. The bartender placed a set of three glasses before the figure and then wandered away.

The figure hesitated. Although their eyes were veiled, they seemed to be staring at the shot glasses with some confusion. They lifted a glass to their concealed mouth, made a move to remove the scarf, and then seemed to think better of it. Spike watched as their shoulders drooped and they rested their elbows on the table in defeat. The TV beyond their head was featuring a news bit about a man named Donald Lee. It showed the man’s shocked face as he listened to the judge dismiss his case due to a ‘lack of evidence.’ Below his face was a banner that read Classification: Detecting. 

The image switched to the Big Shot bounty hunter show. There were no new bounties in the area, and so they were covering old bounties that were still open. The first feature was centered around Patricia LaVelle, a singer turned criminal who was on the run on Earth 2.0. The feature included a shot of her singing ‘Blue Christmas,’ her face exuberant and lively beneath the stage lights. The cloaked figure shifted and Spike heard a small, toneless tune coming from beneath the many scarves and fabrics.

He sucked his teeth. Still listening, he lowered his eyes and cupped his hand around the end of his cigarette. 

“I remember that night like it was yesterday,” he said, just loud enough for the figure to hear. The mound of black fabrics lifted its head and watched as the firelight flicked to life beneath his fingers. “You got sweat and perfume all over my jacket.”

The figure’s head twisted left and right before a single gloved finger pointed at the area where its chest was supposed to be.

“Yeah, you,” Spike said before taking a drag. The nicotine hit and subsequent headrush was heavenly after his too-long hiatus from tobacco. He leaned back and crossed his legs, closing his eyes slightly. “You don’t remember me?” He asked because the figure was shaking its head and waving its arms frantically. “Try again. You were playing basketball on the court outside of the bar. The team you were playing with invited me to join. But right before I could get into the groove of things, I handed you my jacket and you ran away with it. Although I never go to thank you for returning it. If I remember correctly, you left the bar that night in a bit of a hurry.”

The figure balled its hands and reared up. Several people looked up and around at the noise and the figure quickly ducked its head, covering it with its gloved hands.

“Don’t worry,” Spike said quietly, so low that not even the bartender standing a few feet away could hear, “I’m not after your bounty. It’d be a waste of my time, dealing with you.”

The figure hesitated for a long time. Then, slowly, hand over knee, it climbed across the two seats separating them and sat down directly next to him. It loosened the scarf around its jaw, just enough to create a small hole that could be spoken through. The woman sighed and the moisture from her breath nauseated Spike.

“How’d you know it was me?” The lips traced out. Spike rested his forehead behind his upright wrist and peeked at the figure with a small smile.

“You were singing under your breath. I recognized your voice immediately.”

“Fudge,” Patty said, and then quickly covered her mouth with her gloved hand as a bar patron stumbled past them to the bathroom.

“Not so great at the art of evasion?” Spike taunted.

“No, not really. Obviously, in my year as a runaway, I’ve learned absolutely nothing.” Patty leaned in closer and threw her arm on the table in front of him. He wasn’t thrilled about having her lean in so close to him, but he was willing to dismiss the social faux pas in favor of the fact that she probably hadn’t spoken to another human being in a very long time. She kept her voice low as she spoke and seemed to be constantly scanning the crowd for a potential threat. “You’re a bounty hunter. But you’re not interested in my bounty. Why?”

“The pay’s a bit too minimal for my taste.”

“A part of me wants to be offended by that.”

They both chuckled at the absurdity of the claim, considering the circumstances, and looked in opposite directions. “Besides,” Spike added. “Like you said, I’m a bounty hunter. I can’t tell you how many times I've encountered dangerous women. You, my friend, are not one of those women.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I’m sure of it. I remember the first time I saw you, you had thrown yourself between two boys on the verge of fighting. You knew the smaller one would lose the fight, so you took a punch to the chest for him. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the only thing that you’re guilty of is compassion.”

“Christ,” she spat, using an outdated Original Earth term. Her fist clenched around the shot glass until it broke and she was forced to rub the embedded shards against her cloak. “Christ Almighty, you don’t know how relieved I am to hear that  _ someone  _ believes in my innocence. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I have no idea why a bounty has been put on my head, but I’m telling you anyway. A criminal?  _ AND  _ a runaway?! Well, the latter is true for sure but...I ain’t no criminal.”

Spike shrugged. “No one ever is, in their own words. So. How’ve you survived this entire year without getting caught? Doesn’t that little Device on your wrist transmit your location to your government?” 

Patty shifted her sleeve back just far enough to reveal her Device. The screen was blank and cracked. “This old thing’s wack. I was able to scramble it by inserting a small, magnetic slip into the space here, a little trick that I learned from a friend who’s a secretary in the System Maintenance sector. Problem is, it only temporarily disables the Device. It turns back on at random times - morning, night, when I’m taking a piss, it doesn’t discriminate. As soon as it turns on, I have to rush to disable it and get moving before it can ping my location. Saying it’s been hell for me on Earth 2.0 is underselling it. And since I can’t really show my face in these parts, I’ve been living as a cloaked beggar right under the System’s very mechanical nose.”

“And so here you are,” Spike said simply. His cigarette had dwindled to little more than a smoldering stump.

“Here I am,” she said, “At the only dive bar in town that doesn’t check your Classification. God bless nostalgia,” she added, placing a few Woolongs on the table.

“I feel ya on that one, kiddo,” Spike said. Her head jerked up as he stood up. He checked his Baby Badge and noticed, with some twisted sense of satisfaction, that his Classification had turned from Upstanding to Good following his three shots of alcohol. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned away.

“You’re leaving?” Patty asked in alarm, her voice a bit too loud.

“Yep. And you should be more careful with who you talk to. I could have been anybody, you know. I could have turned you in.”

“You say could have been anybody,” she said quickly, standing up, “so maybe you’re someone who can help me out of this. You still believe in my innocence, right?”

She reached out to grab his shoulder. But at that moment, her foot caught on the edge of her cloak. She was frozen in place as the various fabrics and scarves unfurled from her body and fluttered to the floor.

In the following silence, a pin could have been heard dropping on the floor.

She stood completely still. Slowly, her eyes traveled around the room and she realized that every single person was staring at her. For the first time in a year, she felt cool air on her face and knew that the gravest error had been committed on her part. For there, in a crowded bar on Earth 2.0, stood Patricia LaVelle: a Wanted Criminal with a bounty on her head.

Spike looked back at her and simply said, “It’s really none of my business but...you should probably run.”

“ _ Fudge! _ ” She cried out and simultaneously the bar patrons sprang up and lurched towards her. She hopped over a table and dashed into the kitchen, just narrowly missing the swinging arm of the bartender. A group of men burst through the door and she pushed a rolling rack towards them, causing them to tumble like bowling pins. Thinking fast, she dashed back towards them and jumped over their intertwined figures, landing once again in the bar room. A man reached out to grab her and she slid between his chubby legs, momentarily shocking the two women behind him. 

“Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry,” she squealed and barreled through them, their hands tearing at her hair and shirt. She untangled herself from their grasps, their fingernails leaving raised marks against her skin.

She burst through the bar doors and looked around her. Everywhere along the street, people had been alerted to the commotion in the bar and had come outside to see what it was all about. Patty stood panting, her eyes meeting each and every shocked gaze turned her way.

“Oh my God,” a woman’s voice cried out in the distance, “ _ it’s Patricia LaVelle! Someone catch her, quick! _ ”

“No, no, no, no, no, please-” Patricia said, thrusting her hands out before her. “I’m not...you can’t-” her eyes found Spike in the distance. He was smoking a new cigarette, his foot propped against the bumper of his small ship. As she watched, he opened a door and slid in. Without thinking, she ran his way, an angry mob of people behind her.

“Hey, wait, please!” The ship began to lift off of the ground. She came to a halt beneath its shadow and began to jump up and down. “ _ You’ve gotta help me _ !”

The ship gained altitude and cut a quick semi-circle above their heads, disappearing into the distance.

“Aw, come on,” she moaned, feeling very tired all of a sudden. A heavy hand grasped her shoulder and she weakly attempted to shrug it off. “Get your hands off of me-”

The ship reappeared above them. The single door opened and Spike leaned out as far as he could. She grabbed his hand and allowed herself to be lifted into the air. Someone grabbed her ankle from below and she shoved her heel into their nose.

“Sorry about it!” She called ecstatically before she was lifted and swung bodily into the interior of the ship. Once inside she let her head fall back and exhaled grandly. She breathed in and stuck her arms out in the small place, a warm sense of gratefulness welling in her chest.

“Thank you...so much,” she said, a grand smile crossing her face. Spike was hunched low over his steering wheel, an odd look on his face and a smashed cigarette hanging from his mouth.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, attempting to adjust himself within the crowded space. “Seriously. Don’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

The little red carrier ship docked on the Bebop. The two adults clambered out and stood on the platform, stretching their sore limbs. Spike dug around in his pockets and realized, much to his dismay, that he had lost his pack of cigarettes in the scuffle. He sighed and shoved his hands deep in his pockets.

“This day just keeps getting better and better,” he said over his shoulder. “Well...come on.”

Patty said nothing and simply scampered after him. As she walked, she adjusted her remaining scarves over her head, concealing everything but her face. It had become a habit, swaddling herself in clothing, and she felt quite naked without the extra layers. Plus, the sheer size of the Bebop intimidated her. She looked around, trying to take in everything with her eyes. She had never been on a spaceship before and she had always assumed that they would look much classier or at least shinier. She realized that she had been standing awe-struck in the middle of a rotating platform and she rushed to catch up with Spike, her footsteps echoing loudly on the metal floor. 

He ducked beneath a small door frame and she did the same, finding herself at the top of a staircase leading down into a small room. An older man with a mechanical arm sat upon a couch adjacent to a woman in yellow. They were playing some sort of card game and by the look on the man’s face, he was losing.

But the woman…

She was the second prettiest person that Patty had ever laid eyes on. She felt suddenly intimidated by the cool way that the woman held her arms along the back of the couch as if she owned it. Her long legs were crossed and stockinged in a pale pink material, a small golden trinket bouncing regally on her ankle. The woman looked up with a gaze that was less than friendly and Patty reflexively clutched her scarf tighter around her chin, embarrassed by her own run-down appearance reflected in the woman’s emerald green eyes.

“What's this?” The woman asked. “He goes out for cigarettes and comes back with a whole woman.”

“Huh? Spike!” The older gentleman looked up. He glanced once at Spike and then his eyes traveled over to her. “Wait a minute, you look familiar. Have we met before?”

Right at that moment, a dog ran in between her legs. Startled, she stumbled back and spun in a circle as it grabbed the hem of her jacket and began to run. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around it. It tried to squirm away but couldn’t escape her grasp so, resigned, it allowed her to run her cheek against its soft fur. She was extraordinarily fond of dogs, more so than humans at times, and its familiar, fuzzy warmth was a welcome distraction from the strangeness of her situation. The scarf unwound itself loosely from her neck, exposing more of her chin and hairline. The man with the robotic arm said something in surprise and then stood up.

“Hold on...yeah, that’s right, I remember you now. You’re Patricia LaVelle!”

“Patricia La-who?” The woman in yellow said. Spike had disappeared, somewhere out of range of Patty’s vision. She ground her nose deeper into the dog’s fur, drawing strength from the closeness of its little body. She knew that the walls that she had spent a year building were quickly tumbling around her in the small, cramped space of the foreign ship. 

“Patricia LaVelle,” the man said. He took a few steps towards her and then knelt a distance away, seemingly unsure of how to approach the situation. “I saw you on Big Shot. There’s a bounty on your head.”

“A bounty?” The woman in yellow said. “Really? How much?” The man told her and her eyes widened. She whistled. “Well, hot damn, Spike! You did it! You reeled one right in!”

“We’re not turning her in,” Spike said from a corner in the room. Still holding the dog to her chest as if it were a barrier between her and the world, Patty stood up and the three of them turned to face Spike. He had his back to them and was staring out of a window.

“Huh? I must’ve misheard you,” the woman said, twisting her finger in her ear. “You said we’re  _ not  _ turning her in?”

“Then why the hell did you bring her here?” The man with the mechanical arm demanded. Spike shrugged. Patty could just barely make out his reflection in the starry window.

“She’s innocent.”

“What?!” The man and woman said in unison. An expression of anger flashed across Spike’s reflection and he swung around.

“Didn’t hear me?  _ I said she’s innocent _ !”

“And how do you know that?”

“...I just do.”

“You just d-...great, isn’t that fantastic?”

“Look,” Spike said after running his hand across his face, “do you think a Wanted Criminal would just stand there cuddling a dog while their innocence was being questioned?”

They all three turned to look at her. She gulped and began to sweat beneath her scarves. She realized that she was, indeed, cuddling the dog and she quickly placed it back on the floor.

“Well, are you?” The man with the mechanical arm asked her.

‘"Am I what?”

“Innocent.”

“As the day I was born.”

“Well that settles it, then,” the man said sarcastically. She watched as he climbed down the stairs and settled back onto the couch. He threw his large arms over the back and crossed his ankle over his knee, looking for all the world as if he just couldn’t be bothered to care anymore. Spike walked up to him and took the seat opposite him. “You gotta trust me on this one,” she heard him say under his breath. He continued to speak words that she could not hear and she was about to descend the stairs to join them when suddenly the smell of perfume filled her nose. The woman in yellow appeared beside her and in one swift motion clapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists.

“Hey!” Patty exclaimed but the woman ignored her.

“Are you kidding me? You guys must be crazy! There’s no way we’re not turning this bounty in!"

"I brought her on this ship, so she's my responsibility!" Spike said, suddenly growing red in the face. "Let's say she  _ is  _ guilty. That would mean that I caught her, and I'll be the one to cash in on the reward, not you. So let it go, Faye! This has nothing to do with you."

Patty put her finger up, "Wait-"

"Well, when you put it that way," the older man said, "guilty or not, she's still wanted by her government. Keeping her on this ship could be dangerous."

"I know that!" Spike said in exasperation, "but she can't go back. You should have seen the men back there. They would have torn her to shreds!"

"But-" Patty tried again. The older man shook his head.

"Alright, you don't want to turn her in, I get it. But there's nothing more that you can do for her here. I say we send her back to Earth 2.0. Absolve yourself of this silly responsibility, Spike, let her face her planet's justice system. Screw the bounty, screw the entire matter and just move on! Obviously, there's been some sort of mix up and I don't fancy getting caught up in it."

"You think I can't handle my own affairs?" Spike asked vehemently. The woman in yellow - her name must have been Faye, Patty realized - crossed her arms.

"Not reasonably," she hissed.

"LISTEN TO ME, ALL OF YOU!"

The small crew of the ship fell silent and looked up at Patty. She was standing at the top of the staircase, her chest heaving and eyes wicked with frustration. She was tired of being talked about like some faulty possession. She needed answers, for no one's sake but her own. Time was not on her side, and she was sure that whatever conclusion they came to would not be in her favor. "I want to see my bounty."

"What? You mean you've never seen it before?" Faye asked.

"That's what I said," Patty climbed down the steps and stood in front of them. "Can you show it to me?

The three crew members looked around at each other. Spike shrugged and leaned against the wall. 

"Couldn't hurt," he said finally. 

Patty stood back as the older man brought a small TV into the room and set it on the table. They gathered around him and watched as he fiddled with the knobs. Clips from the bounty show Big Shot flashed in reverse across the screen and Patty felt the familiar lump rise in her throat. It had all been because of that dumb show with the glamorous bimbo and her accented partner. It had only been a year since she had seen their grainy faces on a bar TV in her town, cursing her name with allegations of criminality and forever changing her life. It wasn't the actors' fault. They had merely been reading the script given to them. Her face flashed across the screen and the older man pressed a button, pausing it. He rewinded a bit and then pressed play.

"Oh boy, have we got a naughty one for you today," the female announcer squeaked before unrolling a long sheaf of paper, "Patricia LaVelle, wanted for the murder of one Jared Penninam!"

"Penniman…" Patty said thoughtfully, "I know that name…"

"Not helping your case, doll," Faye said, casually observing a chip in her nail. Patty shushed her and then muttered, "sorry."

"You want to be careful with this one, guys," the male announcer exclaimed, "it says that she is a serial murderer. She is classified as Harmful by the Merit Society and could be packing a lot of heat!"

"If found, proceed with extreme caution! Until next time!"

The screen faded into a staticky black before shutting off. Patty could see the three of them watching her on the bulbous surface. She looked away, eyes watering as she bit her lip. She couldn't bear to kill a fly, much less take the life of a man. So at what point had the System decided that she had committed murder? She wracked her brain for answers, wondering if perhaps she had blacked out at some point in her life and committed a terrible crime. But there was nothing in her memory except for long days at the bar microphone and the little flat that she shared with her roommate.

Except, there was one thing...

She turned and walked away from them, massaging her temple with her hands. She stopped at the giant window and gazed out into space. For no particular reason that she could understand, the image of a gas station had infiltrated her thoughts. A gas station and a man classified as Harmful, a man doused in sweat with wild eyes. She didn't know him, but his face often plagued her thoughts. Her handcuffs jangled as she lifted her wrists and ran a finger across the cold, foggy glass. A gas station, a Harmful man, screaming, so much screaming…

"A serial murderer," Spike was saying from somewhere behind her. "Isn't that what the guy said?"

"Yep," the older man answered back.

She turned around and saw Spike's shoulders tense beneath his coat. "If I remember correctly, it takes three killings in order for one to be classified as a serial murderer on Earth. Isn't that right, Jet?"

"To my knowledge, yes."

Spike turned and looked at her. "I'm gonna guess that you don't remember killing three people, do you, Patty?"

"What?! No! That's crazy talk!" She cried. "I don't even know who this Penniman guy is!"

"But a second ago you said he looked familiar," Faye pointed out. 

Patty looked away. "I did…" she admitted sheepishly.

"Well if only there was a way that we could access the System and take a closer look at your file."

"Actually, I think there is," Spike said with a small smile. "Hey, Ed, c'mere a sec, will ya?"

A young boy in tight purple shorts and a shirt several sizes too big for his body bounded around the corner. He stopped and jumped on the railing, landing upside down on his hands. His shirt fell away from his chest and Patty realized that he wasn't actually a boy at all. The girl - Ed - took a flying leap off of the rail and landed with her arms strung tight around Patty's shoulders. She sniffed her ear and Patty laughed at the feeling.

"Guests are the best, guests are the rest, blessed blessed best!" The child sang. " I am Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV. Who are you?"

"I'm Patricia Tonette LaVelle, just Patty," Patty said, lifting the child from her shoulders and setting her gently down. Ed looked up at her from the floor, her head slowly tilting back against her thin shoulders as she took her in.

"You're very tall, miss lady."

"No taller than your name, little princess."

“Hey Ed,” Jet said, bracing his arms against his knees. “Do you think you can access Earth 2.0’s Classification System and pull up the record on Patricia?”

“Patty,” she corrected darkly but no one heard her.

“Radical Edward can do  _ any-thing,”  _ the child chirped with an exuberant spin. “But...what’s in it for Ed?”

“How about this?” Patty pulled a pair of tarnished blue earrings from the inside of her coat and Ed accepted them joyously. She immediately stuck the earrings in her nose and the four adults cringed.

“In a sec,” Ed cried and ran down the hall. She returned a few minutes later with a small, bulky machine and dropped it clumsily on the table. Suddenly studious, she slipped a pair of illuminated goggles over her eyes and began to type away at her keyboard. The banner for Earth 2.0’s Classification System flashed on the screen and then warped, as if distorted by some magnet, into a roving page of green numbers and digital photos. “Patricia...LaVelle…” Ed said curiously, the green numbers reflecting quickly across her goggles. “So many people...Ed can’t find her. Ed needs a direct link to her file.”

“What about the thing on her arm?” Spike asked. He turned to Patty, who tensed under his gaze. “It’s a direct link to the System, right? It should hold all of your data.”

“Yeah, but I disabled it.”

“Doesn’t it turn back on?”

“Well,” Patty scratched her head, “It reactivates at random. And by random I mean it could take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of months. Maybe even a year.”

“Well, isn’t that great,” Jet sneered, crossing his arms. Faye snickered and uncurled her fingers, satisfied in the fact that she had repaired the chip in her nail.

“It’s fantastic,” Patty growled back and then lowered her head in embarrassment. “Sorry, that was rude.”

“When the Device turns on, Ed can latch onto its signal and gain access to Patty’s file in the System. It’s easy-peasy, lemon squeezy!” Ed said sang.

“But we have no idea when it will turn on,” Faye said. Ed gasped and fell backward.

“Oh, you’re right,” she said absentmindedly, her eyes still obscured by the goggles. Unbeknownst to the adults, she was still traversing the System’s many files on the citizens of Earth 2.0. “So many people…” she said in awe. Patty closed her eyes and looked away in frustration. It bothered her to think that the possible answer to all of her questions was so close, and yet relied on the one Device that had caused her so much turmoil throughout the years. 

“So now we sit around and wait for the thing to start working? Do you guys not understand how dangerous this is?! It’s not like we can just fly away to safety because the minute that we leave Earth 2.0s range, the Device probably won’t be able to transfer a signal. Seriously, am I the only one who hasn’t gone looney?”

“Faye's got a point, Spike,” Jet interjected. “At this point, we’re in adversary territory. And I’m willing to bet the minute that thing turns on, they’ll be able to trace her location back to us.”

“But-” Paty cried.

“No buts, missy. You're the biggest gamble I’ve ever taken, and that’s saying something.”

“Spike, please,” Patty rushed towards the man and clasped her hands in front of him. “This may be my only chance to find out the truth of what’s going on. If what the little girl says is true, she may be able to uncover information in my file that could prove my innocence. Please you’ve got to give me a chance!”

Spike said nothing. He simply stared at her from the corner of his eye. Something in his gaze made her realize that she was crying and she shook her head wildly, trying to rid herself of her tears. “Deep down in your heart, you know I’m innocent. I know you do.”

He looked away from her. His thoughts were somewhere far away, lost in the grandeur of space. She could see that much. Whatever decision he was trying to make wouldn’t have anything to do with her, but his own moral code built on whatever strange, strange past held him hostage. The minutes seemed to stretch into hours until, finally, he turned away from the starry window.

“Jet,” he said calmly, in a voice low and unyielding. “You said that she’s a gamble. If she  _ is  _ innocent...are you willing to gamble away an innocent life?”

Jet said nothing to this. Faye frowned deeply and crossed her wrists over the back of the couch. There was a silent tension between them all that even Ed could feel. She looked up and around through her sparkling goggles. 

“Are you willing to gamble your own?” Jet said softly. Spike dipped his chin in what Patty assumed was a nod.

“In this case...yes. Yes, I am.”

“Oh thank you...thank you...thank you…” Patty said, falling to her knees and hugging his legs. He cringed and took a small step back.

“Don’t thank me yet. You stay for the night. We’ll reconvene tomorrow.”

She watched him walk away. There was nothing more heartbreaking to her than a man turning his back and walking away. She watched him and felt stricken with dismay for the first time in a long time. She could feel the other three watching her, and the weight of her situation fell heavy on her shoulders. They had given her a chance, but at a grand expense that made her sick. Their sacrifice in her name made her feel deeply uncomfortable and ashamed. But it was the only thing that gave her a fighting chance towards freedom. 

“There’s a space at the end of the corridor where you can sleep,” Faye said. She sighed grandly and pointed down the hall. Then, in a move that surprised them all, she walked up to Patty and released her from her handcuffs. “Don’t go wandering, though. I’ve got my eye on you.”

Patty nodded. Teeth grit and tears in her eyes, she took the long walk down the corridor to the tiny, metal nook that would be her home on the Bebop that night.


End file.
